Oblivious
by SuperGroverAway
Summary: Stan tries to get on with some work while dealing with what may or may not be shenanigans from his great-nephew...he frankly can't quite tell...


**Hi folks! I'm returning back to my normal silly form for this little piece. However, thanks to the abundance of warm reception, I'm thinking of bringing even more "future" fics along the lines of my last three. If that's what you'd like, let me know. In the meantime, enjoy as always!**

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"...Okay...one...two...aaaaand..." The old man swung down the hammer as hard as he could, and with the well-aimed blow he shattered the last large chunk of soapstone. Stan wiped his brow and grinned proudly at the array of irregular rock pieces now lying strewn about the wooden display case.

"Alright, now let's see here..." He reached for pencil and paper and got to work on his marketing strategy for the gift shop's newest addition. "Hmm… 'Indian arrowheads?' Nah... 'real Indian arrowheads?' Uh-uh. C'mon, Stan, you can do better than that...'ancient Indian arrowheads?' Ooooh, yeah! That's the ticket there!"

Stan pursed his lip as he mulled. He had his hook, but not he needed to figure out pricing. While he mulled, the squeak of sneakers announced the entrance of a young boy.

"Hey, Grunkle Stan." Dipper greeted casually as he sauntered in. He noted obvious work in progress and pried curiously, "What are you doing?"

"Eh? Nothin', just makin' something new for the rubes." The con artist made no attempt to hide his shady doings. He craned his neck towards his great-nephew and nodded to the odd bits of rock that now lay scattered all about the floor. "Hey, while you're in here, think you can sweep some of this up for me?"

"Sure thing." Dipper reached for the broom and went to work as asked. Stan meanwhile carried on with his scheming.

"All right, where were we...oh yeah. Now what should I charge for these babies here...five dollars apiece? Nah, I'm practically giving them away at that price. Ten bucks? No fifteen bucks! That's something we can get away with, right?"

He turned around and looked to his great-nephew for agreement. However, he received nothing more than a firm shake of the head from the boy. Stan was mildly taken off guard by the blunt objection, but then broke into a craggy smile just a moment later. It was honestly kind of heartwarming to see the kids slowly get their heads into their great uncle's business.

"You're right. We've gotta give the yokels way more of a hook if we we're gonna try and fleece that much outta them. Let's see here..." He scrubbed the eraser over the hastily scribbled sign and started over from scratch. "We could say that...hmmm..."

A chuckle suddenly rang out behind him.

Huh?" He glimpsed back around, only to find Dipper still casually sweeping away like before. The boy looked up and gave a bemused shrug of his skiiny shoulders.

"What? I didn't say anything."

"Ah. Sorry." Stan fiddled with his hearing aid and returned to his ruminations. "All right, let's see...how about...oooh, got it! Ancient Indian arrowheads with...special...no, wait... natural healing powers! That'll get the green flowing in!"

Again he turned to his nephew for approval, only to get another shake of the head. The boy bit down on his lip and pointed over to the register. There on the counter sat a basket of broken glass shards, marked with the grossly misleading label of "healing crystals." Stan face palmed hard.

"Right, right, I've done that angle before. Hmm...okay, so maybe instead-"

His ears may have been steadily failing him for the last few years, but there was no denying that he just heard another laugh. Or was it a giggle? The old man winced at the curiously high-pitched sound. Puberty seriously couldn't come fast enough for that scrawny stick of a kid.

"What?" He whirled around and asked again. "C'mon, what's so funny?"

Dipper now leaned on the broom and sported a curious smile. "Oh, I...I just remembered something weird I saw yesterday. That's all."

The scraggly grey hairs on the back of his neck started to stand up. Thanks to an illustrious history as an experienced scammer, he could usually tell when he was being fleeced, and his flimflam senses currently detected something...off. However, when a quick scan of the room produced nothing, he tried to brush the fledgling suspicions aside.

"Right...so, anyway..." Stan continued to ponder over the perfect scheme to market his latest forgery. "Okay, so we can't do the healing thing. Maybe instead we could...huh...aha, now I got it!"

He hastily scrawled out a new sign, and slapped it up with a triumphant grunt. "There! Prehistoric arrowheads, thirty bucks a pop! Not bad, eh, kid?"

Dipper was chomping down hard on his lip again, and just flashed an approving thumbs-up. Stan's scrunched his wrinkled brow and stared curiously at the oddly behaving tween. One minute the kid was as talkative as usual, and the next he was acting like a mute. "Uh...you okay?"

His great nephew nodded furiously. The bemused old man gawked for a few more moments before fixing his attention back on the arrowheads. "Just...just let me know if you need anything, all right? Okay...now a couple of these are a lot bigger than the others. Whadya think, charge the same price for all of them, or jack it up for the large ones?"

"Think they'll go for it?" Dipper asked from behind. "You're already charging a lot."

"Nah, not with the prehistoric schtick I'm not." Stan retorted with no small amount of pride. A grin slowly etched its way across his face as he remembered glorious past swindles. "You should have seen the killing I made with some old cow bones a few years ago. Called them dinosaur fossils, sold them for forty-five bucks each. Think that was overkill? Ha! They were flying off the shelves so fast I couldn't restock 'em fast enough. It was-"

Another high-pitched giggle rang out, loud and clear. Grunting exasperatedly, he whirled about, just as the preteen bit his lip again. Finally, he had caught the kid in the act, and now he was getting some answers. "Okay seriously, just what the heck is your deal right now? You wanna tell me what's so freakin' funny?"

The twelve-year-old was clearly fighting back a wave of laughter, and just let out a snorting honk in reply. Stan's wrinkled face scrunched into a scowl. "Hey, this is a business that I'm runnin' here. I gotta do stuff like this all the time if I want to keep profits healthy. If you want to just treat this like a comedy act or whatever, the just remember who's keeping the fridge stocked for you this summer, and who's...wait...hold on..."

It was about then that a bizarre detail caught his eye. The boy's cheeks were definitely looking exponentially rosier than usual. Something bizarre was going on here, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Warily he gave his great-nephew a more thorough look over. "Kid, are you feeling okay? You're looking kind of...I dunno what, but it's weirding me out-"

"Dipper" had decided that the jig was just about up. Without a word of warning, she whipped the white-and-blue cap up off her head with a flourish and a gleeful high-pitched squeal. "SURPRISE!"

Long chocolate-brown locks tumbled down past her shoulders as the corners of her mouth pulled back to form the biggest, toothiest, most brace-filled smile humanly possible. Stan howled in shock and scuttled back smack into the old wooden display case with a loud bang. Fake arrowheads went tumbling onto the floor, but he could barely hear them above his madly pounding heart

"What the? But you were...you were just...I-I thought...you're not..." The old man babbled like a fool.

Clad in a spare pair of shorts, shirt and vest borrowed from her brother's wardrobe, Mabel bounced up and down and practically shrieked with mirth. Her partners-in-mischief couldn't hold it in any long either. A burst of racket erupted from the next room over, and suddenly Dipper and Wendy spilled out from behind the doorway, both gasping with raucous laughter.

"How many did we get? How many?" Dipper demanded as he nursed aching sides. The teenager snickered as she tallied up their final score.

"Seven!" She punched the air and announced jubilantly. "You guys changed on him seven times! Oh man, that was...this is the new best thing...it's..."

Wendy slid to the floor as a fresh wave of joy completely overwhelmed her. Their happy clamor had now reached such a fevered pitch, Stan genuinely felt like he was going to go deaf. Hurriedly he flicked his hearing aide down a notch as his great-niece bounded up to him.

"Boop!" Mabel flicked the tassel of his fez, then placed her hands on her hips to strike a triumphant pose. "Grunkle Stan, you've just been officially Pine-Switched! Now whadya say to that?"

Stan's heart still pounded like fury in his chest. It took a few more moments until the rattled old man could find his tongue again. "...Why?"

"Because!" She answered with an unapologetic shrug, and provided no further explanation. As their laughter continued to reverberated loudly in his ears, the old man gawked blankly at the cheery-faced girl. Suddenly, before he knew what was happening, he found himself sporting a diabolical grin that matched her mischievous smile almost perfectly.

"Let's find Soos...five bucks says you make it up to at least ten with him..."


End file.
